Wednesday, 27 June 2007

Feet under the table

Those of you that travel by train a lot may well know what I am on about...

You know when you sit at one of the tables on an Intercity 125 and there are 4 seats? The ideal situation is that you sit there and stretch out your legs under the chair opposite.However, on a busy train, it is clearly necessary to let someone else sit there. But what do you do with your feet?

Option 1:Stretch out like you were before - clearly unacceptable as there person opposite will have to sit in a curled up position akin to a cat sleeping on a chair. Not very fair.

Option 2:Have a quick peek under the table - not for too long in case you give the impression that you are checking out their legs or worse, you have a foorwear fettish - and maneover your feet so that they are reaching out but not quite touching. Uncomfortable but probably the least embarrasing and most polite solution.

Option 3:As for Option 2 above but with your feet carefully positioned to inter-lock with the feet of the person opposite. Be very careful. Any touching of extremities could be seen as a romantic advance and this is forbidden by Rule 4, Clause 27, subsection 3 of the commuter etiquette code. It could also result in you getting beaten up.

Option 4:If you are a gobby git (like myself) you could engage the person opposite in conversation and attempt to deal with the difficult diplomatic situation playing itself out under the table. In the end you could say: "Right you put your legs to the left, I'll put mine to the right and then we'll both be ok".

But you'll never do this for 2 simple reasons.1) This is England and that sort of behaviour will never do.2) The code of commuter etiquette Rule 5 simply says: "Never talk to a fellow commuter. Ever."